The foolhardiness of enjoying substance abuse

According to Wikipedia, substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, is a patterned use of a substance (drug) in which the user consumes the substance in amounts or with methods which are harmful to themselves or others. Dictionary.com defines substance abuse as long-term, pathological use of alcohol or drugs, characterized by daily intoxication, inability to reduce consumption, and impairment in social or occupational functioning; broadly, (it means) alcohol or drug addiction. 

From the foregone, we deduce that substance abuse or drug abuse refers to the use of chemical substances (alcohol or drugs) beyond or against prescription with an aim to getting charged up to enhance performance or to induce a high-feeling. This practice, though very common in global urban societies, is especially endemic among the youth.

While substance abuse induces plastic feeling of excitement and euphoria, its resultant agony, when the chips are down, far outweighs whatever transient ecstasy one derives at the onset. Those who are addicted to it feel trapped in a web of trauma they find difficult to extricate themselves from. Given the reality that the disadvantages of substance abuse belittle whatever gains addicts claim they make, one wonders why more and more people, especially the youth, take delight in treading this jolly path to self-destruction.

Our contemporary time is one in which the virtue of hard work has been thrown out to the backyard of achievements. Gone are the days when the worth of men was proved on the arena of hard work and painstaking diligence. In those days, the driving force behind due diligence was the desire to make a name boldly printed on the time-resistant canvass of integrity and self discipline. Today, the kite of fame is flown by hands severed from bodies not firmly founded. In our time, everyone wants to cut corners to achieve firm and fortune, while basic requirements for such achievements are totally ignored.

One reason most people indulge in substance abuse is that they lack self-confidence. Many addicts have confessed that they use the substances in order to feel high. Little wonder then that substance abusers are mostly people in sport, music, movie and other show biz platforms. The moment these classes of people know that confidence means confiding in self, they will take urgent steps to confide in themselves, assuring self that there is nothing a man cannot do which he had resolved with himself to do.

Another reason people indulge in substance abuse is peer pressure. Most people subscribe to wrong things because they do not want their peers to think that they are out of vogue. They want to appear as the happening people. They want to swim in the current tide of time. They however forget that each of us came to the world on our own, and will inevitably leave solo.

There are those who see the habit of substance abuse as riding on the crest of enjoyment. They seem to forget that if they exhaust the life they should enjoy for 100 years in one decade, there will be no reason God should allow them live the rest 90. The idle money, which they throw about to buy illicit substances can be deployed for better things to make life meaningful.

Associated with substance abuse are illicit sex, violent crime, including murder and suicide; while those who abuse substances find depression as a constant companion. None of these is embraceable. When the glow is gone, what is left of an addict’s life is the cold ashes of regrets piled up on the weather-beaten hearth of wasted yesterday.

Indulging in substance abuse is nothing but sheer foolhardiness. Do not use your hand to accumulate for yourself avoidable pains for tomorrow. You cannot return the hand of the clock of your life.